


salt, sand, and the sea

by thir13enth



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, and this fic will be one of them, every ship needs a mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: knighthood becomes a little more like a fairy tale when ingrid meets a mermaid.(or, the obligatory dorogrid mermaid au just before the end of mermay)
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Comments: 12
Kudos: 87





	1. don't let me down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [dorogrid week](https://twitter.com/WeekOfDorogrid), prompt: **ocean**

After a moment, Ingrid looks away from the horizon, blinking out the burning afterimage of the ash-purple clouds and melted sunset from her eyes. She really shouldn’t stare so hard at the sky, but she can’t help thinking that if she tries hard enough she’ll see the distant shores of Faerghus. She can almost taste her homeland’s pheasant roast and peach sorbet, even against the stench of saltwater and barnacles along the marina.

Taking a long exasperated breath, she lets out a sigh and absentmindedly kicks the surface of the water with her boots, watching the spray of water that follows. She lies back against the wood of the dock, turning her head up to the orange and pink early evening sky.

Knighthood has certainly taken her a long way from home, hasn’t it?

Suddenly hearing a strange gurgling sound, she sits up, instinctively scooping her helmet under her arm, her other hand reaching for her lance. She locates the source of the sound — a scatter of bubbles fizzing up between the ripples of water. She squints and — Is that hair? Is that the shape of a _face_ —

Drowning?!

She immediately comes to all fours, outstretching her hand.

“Take my hand!” she yells.

A hand surges up over the surface of the water, and Ingrid grips it hard, pulling up with all her might. The submerged body follows, crashing up onto the dock.

“Are you okay—” But then Ingrid cuts off, blinking several times upon seeing the naked upper half of the woman’s body — and then the unmistakable shimmer of green scales that cover the rest of the woman’s lower half.

Ingrid nearly trips on herself as she steps backwards one, two, three steps.

A… A mermaid?!

Is there any other word for what she’s seeing right now?

“Oh! S-Sorry!” Ingrid apologizes, flustering over her words. Her cheeks start to burn. “I’m so sorry!”

The woman slowly lifts herself up with her arms, sitting up and brushing the mess of her brown hair, some tangles of algae and crumbs of sand in it, over her shoulder. She surveys her surroundings first, looking incredibly lost — honestly, like a fish straight out of water. She looks right to the ocean, then left to the land, before finally meeting eyes with Ingrid, her wide green gaze full of curiosity.

“I didn’t realize you… would pull me completely out of the water, just like that!” she exclaims. “You’re very strong.”

Ingrid’s mind breaks then. “Y-You _talk_? You talk!”

The mermaid laughs. “I sing, too!”

“I-I’m sorry!” Ingrid blabbers. “I didn’t think — I thought you were drowning!”

An amused smile stretches over the mermaid’s lips. “Well, I’m certainly saved now,” and her eyes give Ingrid’s armor a once-over, “My knight.”

“I… I’m…” Ingrid’s words falter.

The mermaid laughs again. “You’re just like all the other humans. You have never seen a creature like me before, have you?” she asks, flipping onto her stomach and propping her chin up on her palms, elbows on the dock. She slaps her tail playfully onto the dock, making a loud smack against the wood. “Although, I have to say I’ve never seen the likes of you around here before. What’s your name, my knight?”

“Galatea,” she answers reflexively. “Ingrid Galatea.”

“Ingrid, huh?” the mermaid says in almost a hum, as if testing the name on her tongue. “Ingrid,” she repeats wistfully, before meeting Ingrid’s eyes again. “My name is Dorothea,” she tells her.

“It’s… nice to meet you,” Ingrid replies. “Dorothea.”

Dorothea grins. “I was watching you, you know,” she says, after a beat.

“M-Me?”

“Yes, you!” Dorothea exclaims. “You were looking so earnestly over the ocean. I was so curious! What could you be looking for out so far in the waves when there is so much more to explore beyond your shores, in your forests, in the mountains?” She gestures behind Ingrid, motioning toward the land. “There is nothing in the ocean. Nothing but the rise and fall of the tides. I was wondering.”

The question hits Ingrid hard — so profound for a question from a stranger.

“Home,” Ingrid finally says, quietly. “I was looking for home.”

“Home?” Dorothea cocks her head, perplexed. “Your home is in the ocean?” Her smile grows. “Oh! I see — are you a mermaid, too?” she teases. “I didn’t see if you had a tail! Maybe… you’re hiding it underneath all that heavy metal?” Dorothea abruptly sticks a hand out to touch Ingrid’s leg, and Ingrid jerks backwards.

“N-No!” she replies, watching Dorothea curl up in laughter. “What I mean is… my home is across the ocean. I…” and here, Ingrid pauses, looking down at her feet. “I come from really far away.”

Her humor settling, Dorothea looks at Ingrid again, her eyes bright. “Oh!” she remarks. “You must have traveled on one of those… what do you call them… ships?”

“Yeah,” Ingrid affirms. “Ships.” She purses her lips. “It was a long trip. Weeks.”

Dorothea simply observes Ingrid for a moment. “You must miss home,” she finally says. “Why don’t you go back?”

“Because I’m—” Ingrid cuts off here. She suddenly doesn’t have the breath to finish that sentence. “I… I should go back,” she says, instead, stepping back to see herself out. “It was nice meeting you, Doro—”

Ingrid completely forgot she already stepped back several times, and now at the very edge of the dock, her right heel steps back into nothing, and she falls ungracefully into the water — armor and all.

“Ah!” she yelps. First, she feels the surface of the water crash against the metal, then the unmistakable feeling of water seep through every crack of her armor, her clothes underneath immediately soaked. She kicks her legs and waves her arms, her head pointed up to the surface of the water in an attempt to swim back up to air. The armor weighs her down, however, and she feels her body slowly descend further in — until Ingrid feels a set of arms wrap around her waist, then a strong force pushing her up until she breaks surface.

Ingrid takes a deep breath in, gasping. She shakes the water from her face, then looking up and meeting eyes with Dorothea.

“You’re very strong,” Ingrid says, once she’s taken enough air back in, her heart rate slowing down.

Dorothea smiles. “Thought you might drown,” she teases.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....what if this turns into a slice of life mermaid au. (also yes, i resisted typing 'reach for my hand' when ingrid said 'take my hand')


	2. like the tide, you come back to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> half-written during [dorogrid week](https://twitter.com/WeekOfDorogrid), for prompt: **overwork**. actually finished today.
> 
> (no i don't know where this is going. and no, i didn't expect to write a second chapter to this.)

Ingrid doesn’t know what draws her back to the shore, but for whatever reason, time and again, she comes back — like how the tide recedes to the deep blue, only to return later, kissing the white beach sand.

Maybe she comes back because it’s peaceful here. Her mind isn’t so congested when she’s face to face with the clear sky and boundless horizon, fresh air and free ocean at her nose. Her thoughts fade away, and she can get out of her mind, even if just for a brief moment.

And, well, certainly it wouldn’t hurt to see that _mermaid_ again.

That mermaid…

At times, Ingrid is convinced that the whole encounter was a complete dream, a total delusion. And the fact that she hasn’t seen that mermaid — even after all the other times she’s come back to the ocean — only convinces her that she might have been out of her mind.

Ingrid hugs her knees tighter to herself — a tough task even when she’s out of her armor and only in gambeson. Ingrid craved comfortable sitting positions in knight wear, but as expected, it’s hard to be flexible in all the protective clothing and metal. The thick fabric padding threatened to rip apart at its joints, tightening around her knees, elbows, and hips.

“Oh! You’re back!” a voice exclaims.

— Under her?

Ingrid swallows her quickened heart beat, calmly lifting her hand to look through the slits of wood, seeing a dark amorphous movement below. Her eyes follow the shadow as it swims out to the end of the dock. Ingrid falls onto all fours, crawling forward and peering over the edge of the dock.

A familiar head of brown hair suddenly emerges from the surface, splashing Ingrid’s face with seawater. Ingrid blinks the salt out of her eyes, tasting the ocean on her lips. 

Ingrid has never been good with names, but her name slips off her tongue as if she's practiced it a thousand times before.

“Dorothea,” Ingrid murmurs.

“Hello, Ingrid,” the mermaid greets her in reply, giving her a bright smile. She folds her arms atop one another on the edge of the dock, propping her chin onto her forearm. The rest of her body disappears past the surface of the water, but Ingrid can see the shimmer of light green scales where Dorothea’s body dips into the water.

The mermaid… she’s real, after all!

Ingrid suddenly realizes that perhaps she isn’t staring at an appropriate place at all, and she shifts her eyes upward — only to meet Dorothea’s eyes.

She doesn’t think she’s ever looked someone so close in the eyes before. Dorothea’s eyes are a dazzling emerald green — almost the color of new forest leaves after a warm summer rain.

Ingrid’s breath catches, feeling a cloud of heat float over her face. Ingrid instinctively sits back to give herself some distance, averting her eyes to the sky and pretending like she hadn’t just been _completely_ entranced. From the corner of her eyes, Ingrid sees Dorothea following her line of sight, pursing her lips curiously.

“Looking for home again?” Dorothea asks.

Ingrid’s eyes flit back to Dorothea. “No,” she replies, but even she herself can hear the waver in her voice.

“You’re lying.”

Ingrid frowns, hugging her knees to her chest — again, as best as she can with while wearing all the inflexible armor — and hiding her face behind them. “I can’t see home from here anyway.”

Dorothea doesn’t say anything to that, simply holding her smile.

Silence befalls them, and Ingrid begins to feel the panic of awkwardness settle over her heart. Her eyes shift back to the horizon, but she nevertheless keeps Dorothea’s grin at the very edge of her vision. Ingrid’s cheeks feel hot and her breath gets tight in her chest, so she distracts herself with the rhythmic sound of the waves, trying to soothe her mind to the gentle push and pull of the water against the shore.

“You never answered my question,” Dorothea suddenly says.

At this, Ingrid turns her head. “What question?”

“Why don’t you just go home?”

Ingrid blinks, furrowing her eyebrows. “What do you mean just go home?”

“Well, if you miss home so much, why don’t you just go home?” Dorothea clarifies. “What’s stopping you?”

Ingrid feels her lips part, as if she expected an answer to come automatic to her. Yet, she finds no words on her tongue. She presses her mouth together.

“I’m… fulfilling a duty right now,” she replies.

Dorothea looks at her curiously. “You mean they don’t let you go home?”

“O-Of course I can!” Ingrid stammers. “It’s just… it’s just not that simple. You can’t just simply ‘go home.’ There’s responsibilities. And… well, sometimes going home is more work than staying out here.”

Ingrid’s eyes flit to Dorothea, looking for any sign of judgment on her face. But Dorothea simply tilts her head to the other side, her gaze drifting off to the sky behind Ingrid, as if considering for a moment. Not before long, Dorothea meets her eyes again, locking.

“Does it ever get tiring?”

“Tiring?”

“You know what I mean,” Dorothea says. “Wearing the armor? Having all these responsibilities? Fighting endless battles? They must overwork you, don’t they?”

Ingrid shrugs, looking down. “It’s fine,” she says. “I choose this.”

“Are you happy?”

Struck by the question, Ingrid pauses.

 _Is_ she happy?

When was the last time she even asked herself that?

“I… must be,” Ingrid reasons, albeit slowly. “I… I’ve always wanted to be a knight. And now, I’m a knight.”

“Why’d you want to be a knight in the first place?”

This answer comes easily to Ingrid.

She’s practiced it many times before.

“I’ve always wanted to be a knight. I don’t know what else I would have been. I thought it was brave and courageous to be a knight. And I thought that being a knight would give me something to be proud of. Give _my family_ something to be proud of,” she explains. “I guess I just… didn’t want to see my family so weak.”

She pauses for a moment, assessing Dorothea’s attention span. But Dorothea is listening attentively, her emerald green eyes bright.

“My family doesn’t have much,” Ingrid confesses. “It’s… it’s nice that I can make enough money to send back to my family, even if it’s just drops in comparison to my family’s debt.” Somehow, only saying this feels incomplete, and Ingrid quickly adds, “I guess the only other option was to marry rich.”

Thoughtfully, Dorothea taps her tail at the surface of the water, making gentle ripples around her. “Why is your family in debt?”

Ingrid almost startles at the bluntness of the question. She furrows her eyebrows, shrugging. “Bad luck, I guess,” she replies. “Our lands have never been that fertile… and well, our house always seems to have the short end of the stick when it comes to Crests.”

“Crests?”

Ingrid holds her breath. Well, maybe it makes sense that a mermaid doesn’t know a thing about Crests, so maybe that shouldn’t surprise her so much. But… this is also the first time anyone has asked her what Crests are… and Ingrid can’t fathom how she’s going to explain just how important they are in Fódlan — more than wealth, social standing — how someone’s family can be completely broken without one, how someone’s life can be completely turned around in bearing one…

“It’s something you can be born with,” Ingrid finally replies. “It’s in your bloodline. It’s very important.”

“Do you have one?”

“Yes.” Ingrid admits, hesitant and watching for Dorothea’s reaction.

But Dorothea’s eyes don’t even flicker.

And why would they? Crests don’t mean anything to a mermaid.

In fact, Crests don’t mean anything to anyone outside of Fódlan — do they?

Ingrid thinks she comes to an important realization here, but she pushes her thoughts off to a small corner of her mind. “Maybe I should have just married rich,” she says instead. “I was supposed to anyway.”

“Then he died,” she adds after a beat.

Her eyes flit up to meet Dorothea’s. Dorothea doesn’t look away, and in fact, Dorothea leans in.

“Do you really think that marrying a rich man would have solved all your problems?” she asks softly.

Ingrid averts her eyes. “No,” she replies slowly. “But sometimes I can’t help but wonder how much better off I would be if I had.”

“Well, it sounds like you had absolutely no intention of doing that in the first place. You wouldn’t have been happy even if you had,” Dorothea tells her. “So it sounds like to me like that isn’t the solution either.”

“I’m not happy now either though,” Ingrid retorts.

Dorothea frowns. “Why not?”

Ingrid curls up into an even tighter ball. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe it’s just that part of me that regrets not just doing what was expected of me. And honestly, I don’t think I’m doing that well as a knight.” She sighs. “And that’s disappointing. I chose this path. I wanted to do this my entire life and now I’m here, and I’m not doing as well as I want to and I’m not as happy as I thought I would be. I’m a knight now. I should be ecstatic. But I’m not.”

“So are you unhappy because you are a knight or are you unhappy because that wasn’t what was expected of you?”

The question catches Ingrid off guard. Dorothea seems to be catching Ingrid off guard a lot today.

“No, I love being a knight,” Ingrid says. Something hits Ingrid then, and her eyes widen. “I guess… I guess it’s just when I start thinking about what I _should_ have been doing, I start regretting what I _am_ doing, and then I get into a whole vicious cycle just thinking about it all.”

Dorothea watches Ingrid for a moment, then shrugs. “That’s alright to doubt your decisions every now and then. But you’re doing what you want to do for sure! And you’re following your heart! You would have been way more miserable marrying some boring rich man. At least now, you’re happy as a knight! Are you going to let people stop you from being happy just because you’re doing what you want to do?”

“I guess,” Ingrid replies doubtfully.

But Dorothea’s words do make her feel a little better.

And in fact, Ingrid almost feels a little silly confessing all this to … a mermaid.

Dorothea gives her a curious smile, tilting her head. “I’ll be right back,” she suddenly announces, slipping straight down into the water.

Ingrid peers over the deck, trying to track where Dorothea went, but before Ingrid makes out a shape under the ripples of the water, Dorothea’s head pops back up over the surface — splashing Ingrid’s face with seawater once again.

Dorothea giggles as Ingrid smacks her lips distastefully at the salt.

“Acquired taste,” Dorothea teases, lifting the entirety of her body up out of the water and sitting up on the dock next to Ingrid. As Ingrid takes a second glance at the transition of Dorothea’s skin to her scales, Dorothea reaches up and plucking a bit of brown algae off Ingrid’s hair. “Here,” she then says, producing a string of conch shells and coral. She drapes the necklace around Ingrid’s neck, taking extra care to make sure it doesn’t catch on her ears and to fit it comfortably over her neckline.

“For you, my knight,” she says, clasping her hands together and giving Ingrid a brilliant grin.

Ingrid flushes, hiding her own smile. “Why… Why are you giving this to me?” she asks, looking down at the craftsmanship and running the cool conch shells over her fingers.

“Because I like you!” Dorothea explains, rather directly. “I thought I would give you a gift the next time I saw you.”

“It’s very pretty,” Ingrid says. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course!” Dorothea says.

She lets silence befall the two of them for a moment, observing Ingrid in the meantime before she perks up again, pursing her lips.

“What if…” Dorothea starts, with a small arch of her eyebrow. “What if I told you that I was a _princess_? And that I was heir to all the riches of the sea?” She leans in suddenly, very _very_ close. “Maybe you still have the chance to marry rich, huh? Maybe you should marry _me_.”

Ingrid hiccups. “A-And then what?” Ingrid forces out a joke. “I can inherit sunken treasure chests and abandoned ships?”

“Don’t be mean!” Dorothea retorts, giving Ingrid a playful push. She rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m kidding about me being a princess by the way.”

“I… I thought you might have been kidding,” Ingrid replies, unsure of what else to say.

Dorothea’s eyes lock onto Ingrid. “I’m not kidding about you marrying me, though,” she says.

Ingrid’s mouth goes dry. She licks her lips quickly. “W-What— What do you—”

Dorothea bursts into laughter, clutching her belly and throwing her head back. “You fell for it again!” she cackles. “You’re so gullible! Did you _actually_ think I was being serious?”

Ingrid feels herself blush ferociously. “W-Well, I mean, I didn’t want to assume!” she defends herself. “I don’t know… I don’t know anything about mermaids! I wasn’t sure if…” She trails off, feeling her cheeks grow even hotter. “I don’t know!” she shouts, giving up and turning her head away.

“You’re _so_ funny,” Dorothea hums. “You’re such a _strange_ knight.”

“Well, _you_ _’re_ a strange mermaid!” Ingrid shoots back.

“I’m the _only_ mermaid you know, my knight,” Dorothea gently reminds her, but then she frowns here. “Unless? Unless maybe I’m not the _only_ mermaid you’ve been acquainted with?”

“N-No!” Ingrid blubbers.

“Good,” Dorothea giggles. “Because if I heard otherwise, I’d be so terribly _jealous._ I want my strange knight all to myself!”

She’s just joking, Ingrid tells herself. She’s definitely just joking.

“Anyways,” Dorothea says, leaning in. “This has been a lovely date, my knight.” She places her hand softly on Ingrid’s cheek, her touch remarkably cool against Ingrid’s flushed skin. “I’ll see you later?”

Ingrid nods. “Yeah,” she replies, barely an exhale. “Later.”

Dorothea’s smile grows wider. “Good,” she says.

And then a split second later, she slips back into the ocean tide — leaving Ingrid with just the taste of salt, sand, and the sea on her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep)


End file.
